It's Thedas Jim, But Not As We Know It
by Apollo Wings
Summary: 1950/60s gritty AU using my favourite cast of Warden Origins (plus my OC Dyrfinna). We're not going medieval on the darkspawn! It's time we hit them with a few pounds of lead! Rated T for vulgar language, drugs, racism, feminism and eventual cross-dressing dwarves. May go up over time as it'll get gritty and darker. Don't forget to Review! Apollo xxx
1. In the bunker

Author note: I just had to do it. This is a side-project to my main storyline 'The Daughter of the Mountain' and it's offshooting stories and continuing DA2 and eventual Inquisition novelizations. It is that canon - but you know I'll be having some fun with this! Modern and mages! (well - modern-ish - think 1950's/60's america/uk)

But this is severely AU. Our current Wardens are Carver Hawke, Dyrfinna O Auonar, Alistair Theirin, Raighne Tabris, Silmarwen Surana, Rocky Brosca, Lucien Amell and of course - Duncan and Riordan.

Dharma Aeducan and Richard Cousland are not Wardens.

Everyone is slightly AU because of the setting. You'll see eventually. Don't forget to review because I'm bloody nervous about this!

Let's just remember I'm not the owner of the characters or the plotline but it's soooo loosely based on the original story that all I need to do is change a few surnames/names of characters and places and I'd have a fully original story! Whey-hey! Still prefer fanfiction though.

* * *

Alistair held the hatch to the underground bunker open as his fellow Wardens piled in to the sounds of gunfire and explosions from grenades. They weren't many but they all were close.

"Move move move!" Their squad leader shouted, voice hoarse from shouting commands on the muddy nomansland over the course of the day. Faces covered in soot and mud streamed past in the navy fatigues and down the metal rungs, some cursing below from the elven mage as she twisted her foot upon landing but otherwise the Wardens just groaning below.

A piece of shrapnel flew mere inches from his face and Alistair grit his teeth, bringing up his rifle and looking down the barrel at the sight. The hurlock was an easy shot, clean through the head before downed. Duncan ducked past him and pulled him by the leg of his trews to follow in.

The steel lid to the bunker was slammed shut and he moved quickly, mud from capped-boots slick over the rungs. The buzzing electric light swung, a fly making it's languid pattern in the air as he glanced over the others here.

Maker's breath but they'd lost both Tamarel, Branwen and Gregor on the field today if there was any doubt over it being a Blight it wouldn't be long before the civilians rethought that and quickly. Cigarettes were handed out and lighters before even water canteens and energy bars. "Fuck me, I hate darkspawn." One of the few women in their elite squadron moaned, flicking the ash off the end of her slim rolled fag, face covered in mud but her unnaturally green eyes still shining. Silmarwen Surana was an elf, and a mage. Invaluable to their task and junked up on lyrium half the time because of her condition but still invaluable.

"Language." Carver growled at the elf. Carver was a young man, hair the colour of coal and arms that could probably heft a pig under each one in a different time. The elf smacked him on the arm, barking her laughter.

"Normally fucking Common but I speak Nevarran and Tevene too. Swear in 'em too!" She laughed, taking a drag off her cigarette, brown tar inching before the burning ash on the end. She blew the grey smoke at him and he shook his head, not bothered to deal with her at the moment.

"Wardens." Duncan, their Commander. The half-Riviani with a gold earring in his right ear and a roguish beard and a short tail of hair that made him look like a pirate more than a veteran of the darkspawn wars said tersely. Faces looked over at him, some tired beyond belief and others too caked in blood, soot and mud to have much expression, smoke curling into the hot air. "The horde is advancing. We'll be moving to the southern fortress of Ostagar and meeting up with the King's army, word on the wireless is the horde is thicker there."

"Maker's balls." Lucien, the Constable - second in command, another mage snorted, sorting out his syringes full of liquid lyrium. He kept his hair long against regulation, allowed because of his status and smiled grimly up. "Just what we need, more darkspawn."

"Korth's throne, will you all shut your traps and listen?" The only other living woman in their order barked, cleaning the barrel of her bayonet with a bristly pipe-cleaner, toothpick in the edge of her mouth. Dyrfinna O Auonar was a strange woman, more man than woman if you'd believe it and had tribal tattoos from face and over most of her body if Silmarwen's gossip after the showers held any truth. She'd once lived in a cabin up in the mountains and drank like a man too. But of course that life was over too for the woman. Alistair often wondered what made someone like that take up guns and join a down and out squad like the Grey Wardens.

"I was listening. Albeit, half." The other half-Riviani in the room smirked. Raighne Tabris used to be a tailor, a country and western fiddler and a mean bluegrass player according to Lucien. He always amended his regulation uniform with a brass brooch on the lapel - of a coconut, his locker was filled with black and white polaroids of his wife, daughter and twin sons. An elf of the slums so lovingly called 'The Alienage'. That was his life before he'd had the call up into the army and promptly threw his lot into joining the Wardens. Alistair liked the elf except for the shifty eyes as dark as sin. He was another to go against regulation hairstyles because he was a sniper. He tied his waist-long hair into a plait and shoved it inside his helmet.

"I'm tired of this arguing." Duncan announced. "Clean up, shower you all stink. We're moving as soon as this scouting group passes."

"Go shag a tree Boss. I smell'a victory." That was the last member of their mismatched band of players. Rocky Brosca. Murderer, keenest wit with bombs and disarming bombs if the mood so passed the fiery-haired dwarf. A real diamond in the rough with his chemicals too but nobody was to really know that because he should have been put in maximum security with no chance of parole with what dirt he had on the dwarven kingdom of Orzammar and his role in almost single-handedly slaughtering the organized crime-ring that had raised the beggar's son from the streets of another slum - also lovingly named - 'Dust Town'. He raised his arms and sniffed under, the butt of his fag nearly burning his armpit if not for the patch of sweat there. Put a tommy gun in his hands and you had a man who'd take on suicide missions and come out smelling of roses.

"Shag a tree yourself Private Brosca." Lucien smirked. "And must you be so nasty? Fuck's sake dwarf you'd think all your kind were uncouth slavering fools."

"Compared to lyrium hooked slavering fool I'd say uncouth sounds like an Ancestors forsaken holiday!" The dwarf countered, stubbing his cigarette in the glass ashtray and blowing out a final ring of smoke.

Silmarwen laughed and passed her butt to the dwarf to stub. "But it's so fucking goooood!" She cooed. "Power at your fingertips just a shot of lyrium and the darkspawn get zapped."

"Sod off Elfy, the Rocky don't swing for skinny junkies." Private Brosca chuckled, hopping of his stool and picking up his 'alchemical' kit. "You guys need me I'll have to take a sodding shower. But nobody needs the dwarf til you're keeling from genlock claws and gasping for a medikit."

"Shower." Lucien snorted at the dwarf, passing a syringe with clean needle over to Silmarwen who eyed it like gold in liquid form. She rolled her sleeve up and pulled it tight around her bicep, one-handedly piercing into the soft joint on the opposite of her elbow.

Alistair averted his eyes, natural with his templar training. He'd been trained to search the lyrium-houses and boroughs of the the worst cities for mages, how to spot the signs of a mage high on the drug, the needle pricks or the decaying nostrils of snorters. Take them to circles - academies and universities where those with the magical condition could be taught to control their powers and receive clean lyrium - not the street stuff that was cut with all sorts of shit where they got diseases from sharing needles.

The elf sighed loudly. "Fuck me, wonderful shit that is. Lucien - I love you."

"Just shower." Lucien sighed, packing up his syringes. It was common for feelings of euphoria after lyrium. Templars took it too to make them more adept at sensing magic and therefore apostates - mages not of the circle. Alistair shuddered as the elf walked dreamily past in the bunker, sniffing and shuffling her feet.

"I need to get another letter to Nesiara and the kids." Raighne sighed. "And I am not telling her the shit you lot get up to! She'd have a bloody conniption fit to hear about legal junkies, master-chemists and all the other shit you lot do. Just keep me out of it." The half-Rivaini stubbed his second cigarette out, normally a chain-smoker and would have lit a third if not for his undying need to write his letter. Ah... he picked up a third out of his packet, lighting it with a match and taking the ashtray with him as he walked to his bunk in the sleeping quarters of the bunker.

Alistair looked over the people left. Duncan had already gone to the commander's pokey office - his own cigar that he had in private wafting thick smoke into the communal mess. Dyrfinna has finished with her bayonet and her boots were off and being polished fastidiously with the stinking black polish and leather chamois. Carver was taking apart his gun, complaining about straining one of those massive shoulders one the kick-back and how he would fix the sub-machine gun up. The young man had actually lived on a farm at one time according to what little he did say, cows and chickens, potatoes and wheat - the whole shebang.

Other than that - it left himself leaning against the wall and Lucien still making sure his precious lyrium was packed secure and locked. The electric light buzzed as the fly hit it. "Did you hear Raighne's cousin Soris published a book? Sent a copy of it for us to peruse, signed and everything." Alistair attempted to make some small talk with the Wardens he didn't tend to speak to, two of them fairly new to the squadron and the other a bit aloof and just a little mad truth be told.

"And? What's it about?" Carver shrugged, intent with his screwdriver.

"It's supposed to be a period drama about the rebellion from what Raighne's mother said about her time in the Night Elves." Alistair shrugged. "You know, pretend it was all swords and arrows rather than hiding in trenches with shoddy guns and make-shift grenades."

"Whoop-de-fucking do-da. I'll have a peek if Raighne says I have to." Carver shrugged back, not looking up.

"Dyr? You've had a peek haven't you?" Lucien asked.

"I read a short while. It's overly romantic and set on a beach at the beginning. If I wasn't screaming for Private Tabris to get the bullets over to me a few hours later I might've actually read some more." The tattooed woman didn't look up from her boots.

"Oh I remember that, nearly ended up clogging your gun with darkspawn gristle when you shafted that bugger in the nose." Carver snorted. "I think the darkspawn'd fall quicker if we had these big fucking swords like during the last Blight. Four hundred years ago they had the right idea with not needing munitions factories and all these fiddly bastarding screws."

"And you'd have this fuck-off sword of righteousness Private Hawke?" Lucien chuckled, having had his dose of lyrium while the Carver had ranted. "Now that's what I need to see, sweaty man running around with a girder strapped into his hands and getting up and personal to a hurlock!"

"Fuck off Constable." Carver snorted derisively.

"Shall do. Ciao now my sweeties and remember we've got the group-therapy session as soon as we hit Ostagar - just because there's a war on don't think anger management goes out the window. Love you my darlings!" He waved at them, hefting the metallic briefcase under his arm as he strode toward the showers in the bunker.

"I hate anger management." Dyrfinna snorted, placing her boots down and unbuckling her stab-vest off her fatigues. She inspected a small hole in it and narrowed her eyes.

"That's why you two need it don't you?" Alistair laughed hesitantly, left with two stoic Wardens now.

"Mari needs it more than us but nobody says the elf that frazzles darkspawn should stop hitting people and swearing." Carver and Dyrfinna had both looked up at the same time, both deadly serious.

"Yeah, Silmarwen needs Lucien's 'group-therapy' more than us."

Alistair put his hands up in surrender. "Not my decision!"

"Damn right it isn't. Why are you still here. Go shower - you have mud all up your front." Carver pointed out before getting back to his gun parts and meticulously inspecting each with a magnifying glass. Alistair looked down and saw he was in fact covered up his front in mud - likely from the rungs into the bunker.

"Maker's breath. Right away Private Hawke!" He quipped, mocking a salute.

"That's Private Hawke Ser!" Carver barked a laugh mirthlessly. "Private Theirin."

"Oh shut up about that." Alistair groaned, leaving the scowly duo to their devices. He wished he'd never said a word about that.

* * *

Finally satisfied with her gear, Dyrfinna stowed her boots under the bench and laid her bayonet out on the top. "I'm off to shower. Have fun with your gun and one of the screws rolled under your boot about half an hour ago." She remarked, unzipping the front of her all-in-one fatigues and relishing in the slight coolness against her vest of the muggy, cigarette smoke filled air. She could hear Rocky, Raighne and Silmarwen gambling from here in the dormitory. That or just drinking and betting on who was walking in the wobbliest line while listening to some depressive blues on the wireless.

"Thanks Dyr." Carver gave her thumbs up. "You still up for the sparring later?"

"Never miss it." She grinned. Korth's throne was she thankful Carver didn't treat her any differently to any of the men. She hated being coddled because she was a woman. She liked Carver and often went off with him when they got their wages to get properly pissed in one of the pubs and bars they tended to frequent. Raighne didn't like drinking, spending his wage on fags and paper for sending his letters before the rest was back with his wife and three kids. Rocky drank with them but he preferred the dwarven ales and meads which didn't get served on the surface. It tended to mean he tinkered away on his nasty weapons and sent off for expensive components.

Silmarwen and Lucien just got on with their lyrium supplies and getting the latest technologies and books for their magical conditions.

Really, Carver was her only ally amongst the Wardens. She trooped into the showers, a line of green rust around the fittings and mildew on the tiles. The fluorescent lighting didn't give any favours to the woman as she peered at the figure in the scummy mirror, bags under her eyes as dark as sin and blonde hair lank. Most of her was sooty, sweaty, muddy and she smelled of saltpeter, gunpowder and tainted blood from the fighting. Damn Rocky and his explosives.

She unzipped fully and hung her all-in-one fatigues on the hook, grabbing a towel out of the airing cupboard. She padded over to one of the showering cubicles and stripped of her vest and knickers, eyeing the dried out bar of cold-tar soap in garish orange in the dish.

Dyrfinna twisted the faucet and hissed as the first cold splatters of water hit her. They didn't always have hot water in the bunkers and she doubted they did now. She scrubbed quickly and throughly, skin like gooseflesh before she was done and wrapped the towel around her, scooping her dirty clothes for the laundry. No doubt she'd end up having to do it again.

* * *

Raighne finished off his letter, it wasn't much but it was something to Nesiara, a group photo of the Wardens taken only a few months ago at bluegrass night at the Orzammar Compound - where they'd picked up Rocky. He made sure to tightly wrap the parcel of dwarven taffy for Adaia, his eldest and the knitted caps for the boys, Junior and Nelaros. Why she'd wanted to name one of the twins after her brother that had died in a bare-knuckle pit fight only the Maker knew but still. He remembered to put a tin of the cough drops his father liked in the parcel and the perfume Nesiara loved before tucking the letter inside and tying the twine. As soon as they were on the move he'd drop it at the post office in Lothering to be sent.

They'd just been moving from underground bunker to underground bunker since Orzammar. The darkspawn were definitely getting up on the surface more since then. It wasn't a surprise to hear of a horde in the south.

Raighne lit another of his woodbines off the last one as he stubbed it out and stuck the stamps onto the brown paper package.

"You finished yet Shifty?" Rocky grunted dealing another hand of poker out on the desk.

"Gimme a moment you dangerous fucker. Some of us have family." He answered, holding his new woodbine between his long fingers and picking up the ashtray, putting it on the low table and sitting on the stool.

"You keep up like a chimney and you'll get black-lung. I seen it." Silmarwen grinned, still on her high. "Raise to two coppers."

He took a peek at his cards and tossed the two coppers in after her. "Call."

"Raise to four." Rocky shrugged, tossing his four into the centre. He dealt the next card into the off centre on the table that was scratched to buggery with profane language he'd never let his kids even hear.

He trained his face neutral long ago but Silmarwen hadn't, her left eyebrow twitched and she tossed six coppers in. "Raise six." The other elf got out her tine of tobacco and papers, rolling it deftly on her thigh before lighting with a match.

Raighne called and Rocky, just as sneaky a bugger as him had no tell that he knew yet - called too.

The dwarf dealt the next card with a flick of his wrist. "Could I pinch a fag off one a yous?"

"You owe me." He sighed, slipping his pack out of his breastpocket and flipping the lid. The dwarf pulled one out and lit the woodbine.

"Yeah yeah, what do'yer need?" He sighed.

"Set me up with some tickets to a show next time we hop in Denerim for me and the wife and you can pinch one whenever for the next week." He hated to admit it but it was difficult getting tickets to anything worthwhile as an elf. Nesiara wanted to see those musicals with the flashy dancers or those big band things. Not a fiddler behind a wire cover so beer bottles didn't smash on his face.

"Fold." Silmarwen chucked her cards into the table, leaning back on her stool and breathing her smoke out in an 'Orlesian exhale' so it covered her angular face.

"Call." Raighne chucked his coppers into the pile and leaned back.

"Alrighty then." Rocky sighed dramatically. "And call." He flicked the last card out and Raighne couldn't help the grin. Fucking Maker yes!

"Raise to eight." He put the eight coppers in.

"Call." Rocky chucked his in. "Let's see this sodding hand then."

And Raighne won! "Come to Papa, Junior needs a new pair of shoes!" He chuckled, pulling the coins toward him like a dragon over it's hoard.

"Lucky break." Rocky laughed.

* * *

Carver finished up his gun maintenance, screwing the contraption back together and tested the trigger again without a clip. Smooth as a baby's arse. He could swear that other than Rocky he was the only one that knew how to take the bastarding things apart and then put them back together. And other than Duncan he might've been the only legal driver too with any knowledge on how to put the all-terrain vehicle bad into working order. Legal being the operative word because all you had to do was show Rocky the basic engineering or plans to something and he'd wire it to explode or know how to infiltrate for a bank heist. Not a shady character at all - crackpot dwarf.

Most of the Wardens were a bit skewed in his opinion. Alistair was a your run of the mill soldier for going out on the town and sitting in a bar with a stage. Even did a bit of crooning himself. Then he had those 'highly valuable'' collectable pins and stamps and you didn't want to get axle grease anywhere near those!

Dyrfinna drank like a man and went on the town like one too. Sort of shoulders you'd be glad to have if your name was Terry and a volatile temper. He soon found out that she was a bit of a cook within no-time. Basically turned lard, those stupid freeze-dried potatoes and a gammon into a meal though and that was a plus in his books. Quiet - which always worried him when a woman wasn't chattering.

Silmarwen was a nut-case junkie and proud of it. Because the Wardens had the papers to make her being out in the streets legal she felt like it was status. Swore like a trooper even in her sleep and could turn darkspawn inside out. Gossiped and chattered when she wasn't high and loved the blues.

Raighne was shady too, there were whispers about a murder involving poisons and but the elf sure could fiddle. His violin and banjo were the best Carver had ever heard and he could write the music and lyrics at the drop of a hat. He really performed given the chance and his sniper skills were sort of undeniable. The only family man in the Wardens and smoked like one of the tall factory chimneys.

Lucien was another of the junkies, a pseudo-psychiatrist and begrudgingly, he admitted a damn-fine healer. Most of the time he swayed between lyrium highs and sarcastic lows. Mad as a loon. He was also related to that loon, their mothers being cousins.

Other than that there was the Commander, Duncan. Didn't give orders without a reason, strict enough to keep the junkies in line and very likely - the criminals too. He'd once come out with him, some Orlesian Warden called Riordan on leave from Orlais that he knew, Gregor and Lucien (that wasn't fun). They'd ended up at some sleazy strip joint before he'd just called it a night and headed back to the Compound. He knew if his sisters or mother even got a word through the grape-vine about that he'd have been dragged through the streets by his ear by one of them and made to ask what he thought of women and their place in society.

Carver sometimes felt like one of the few sane fuckers in the squad. It was weird being one of the few. He trudged into the dormitory to find the elven mage snoring her high off in her bunk, Raighne and Rocky smoking like chimneys and drinking a dusty bottle of wine of all things in the corner, the blues having been turned off ages ago and a thumping country beat coming through the wireless.

Dyrfinna was on her bunk, reading the copy of that book Raighne's cousin wrote and Alistair was sorting his newest pins and stamps into his books on his own bunk.

Wherever Lucien was Maker knew. Likely in the kitchen setting fire to the sausages and beans that had been near constant food for a while. "You up for a spar then or chickening out?" He smirked at the tattooed woman in her civvies, flannel blouse and corduroy trews.

"I might as well. Raighne! Tell your cousin to write humour next time!" She put the book down on the side table and swivelled off, her blankets shifting under her.

"He did! It flopped in the shops!" Raighne laughed back.

"Oh! Can I have a go after?" Alistair lifted off his bed, putting his un-placed pins and stamps in the envelope he got them under his pillow and stretched out his back. He suddenly turned beet-red and looked at Dyrfinna and himself warily. "I er... didn't mean it like that."

"Sure you didn't Alistair. You like men now?" Rocky laughed.

"Oh shut up you obnoxious dwarf." Alistair snarked back.

"Think we should just leave the fishwives at it?" Carver whispered at the waiting woman.

"Eh, they'll figure something out." Dyrfinna shrugged. "Whip 'em out boys and measure them up! Only way this'll ever get sorted."

Alistair spluttered and buried his red face in his hands, remarking on evil women while Rocky barked his laughter, briefly waking the tangle of curly brown hair and pierced pointy ears on the bunk before she muttered sleepily back into her pillow.

* * *

Rocky loved the Wardens. They could be sodding hilarious. He liked that Carver bloke with the hands that got any engine humming like a hooker been paid double for the hour. Had a rod up his arse but that could always be fixed.

Alistair was obviously wet behind the ears and the man collected fucking stamps for Ancestors sakes! Sang like one of the legendary crooners and got them into this swanky bar where the waitresses had legs that went all the way up because he'd sung there. Boy was it fun ribbing him!

Silmarwen was fucking hilarious too. Stone if he understood the babbling shit about lyrium and magic from the junkie elf but when she turned hurlocks into sludge like a gas bomb the elf was all right in his books. Too skinny of course.

It was weird having two women left in the Wardens. Branwen was a bit of all right, didn't give a dwarf the time of day and kicked him in the stones once but a dwarf can try. Dyrfinna weren't half as bad, same sorta wonderful legs and an awesome swing with a bayonet. Saw an eye on the end once. And she drank like a dwarf. Yup, the women left in the Wardens weren't bad in his books.

Raighne was funny when he wanted to be, he could always bum a smoke off the dark elf and he was a crack with his music.

They were down an elf though and that sucked. Tamarel was a bit shifty, flitting sort of elf that kept to himself. But a nice guy once you got those shaky hands an ale and picked up one of those magazines with the pin-ups in swimsuits in. Boy that elf knew how to pick 'em!

Lucien was loony as fucking lyrium, babbled about relationships and anger and unhealthy attitudes but mainly he told the bugger to piss up a rope and heal the burn victims of his bombs. If they weren't darkspawn of course. You don't all Rocky Brosca a dull wit without getting a shiv in your kidneys come an hour later.

Nah, he liked the sodders. Left him to sort out the explosions and the illegal shit which is what he always did. Even trusted his medikits! No sodder in the carta would've let him touch them with a barge pole if it had a medikit of his one the end. Grey Wardens were crazy though.

* * *

Lucien signed off on the letters to Branwen and Gregor's families. Tamarel hadn't had one as far as the Wardens knew but it was still gristly business. He could smell the stodgy beans and sausages from a can burning on the stove and inwardly cursed his slowness while on his high.

He should've been sleeping now but work was work and Duncan liked to close himself off a bit when someone died on the field. The regrouping in the bunker nearly had meant Alistair losing his face to shrapnel from one of those dirty bombs Rocky put out for darkspawn. Missed the lucky fucker but he Knew Duncan carried those peoples deaths and injuries quite solemnly.

He remembered the times the Commander and he'd gone to all sorts of places, drunk off their arses, wages in pockets and just did a tour of a city until they realised their pay was gone and acted like Chantry mice until the next one came in from Weisshaupt. Being a Warden was more fun outside of the Blight or trekking the deep roads.

That and now he was surrounded by people with anger-management issues that needed resolving. Lot of terse silences at the mess table that needed patching.

"Damn Luce, you'll run a hole in the floor at this speed!" He snarked to himself, the fact he was still staggering to the hob to check the really burnt offerings for the night was nothing. He could be sarcastic to himself right?


	2. Who do you think of on the front lines?

Author note: I surprised myself with this story. And planned the sequel 'We're Not in Thedas Any More, Toto' for DA2. Bad author is bad but you all love me for it. I just have so many planned stories now that my muse might just cry with happiness.

Magda loves having lots of ideas, it's just my job to steer it into one/two storylines. I think it works with using the same universe to keep her on track. That and we both have a love of AU. Sometimes it's like having an alter ego that's your best friend and worst enemy.

I'll be updating this (and eventually the DA2 sequel) alternate to the original Tdotm stories. Just remember the time-period this is based in. You have racism that I've given to the elves, feminism because of war and men being called into the army (so the women would be taking traditionally male jobs and proving themselves) and that whole Ferelden touch of bull-headed-ness. I've fallen in love!

Wait for jiving, brawling, cross-dressing dwarves and a whole lot of fun. I love it! Slightly Dad's Army, Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Blackadder Goes Forth. I'm not sure if I'm doing any romances in this though. We'll see.

I have terrible language. I think I should count how many times I've typed 'fuck' here...

* * *

Dyrfinna kept her fists balled as she circled with the mechanic, both lowered into the fighting stance of hand-to-hand brawlers. Carver was a large, imposing man. Younger than her by six years it would seem but that meant nothing with his sheer size. Experience versus strength it would seem.

The light in the bunker flickered briefly and she felt the darkspawn activity through the concrete of the bunker. Bollocks. They might be holed up here longer than they thought.

"Two coppers on the chick." Rocky, the flame-haired dwarf muttered.

"I'll take that bet and raise four on Private Hawke. Alistair? What do you say?" Raighne muttered back.

"I say, Alistair needs stinky cheeses and I bet they both end up having Lucien split them up." Alistair snorted.

"Oh you're on." There was a placing of coin on the mess table and anxious eyes watching, hoping for one of them to trip up. Dyrfinna didn't even think it would be her. Confidence is key.

The two Wardens met, hands clasped to elbow joints when they clashed, tussling for an upper hand. Dyrfinna raised her knee swiftly for Carver to block it with his own knee. "Think you're a tough nut to you boy?" She grinned, something more fun about hand-to-hand than the detachment of shooting, hence why she carried a bayonet.

"Icy cunt." Carver groaned when her knee successfully got him in the balls. He lowered, massive hands still holding tight on her elbow joints from the blow and glared heatedly with those piercing blue eyes. She pulled her head back and nutted him one on the forehead and temporarily dazed herself in the process as pain bloomed through her brow.

"Fuck! That's gotta hurt!" Raighne laughed, his cigarette bobbing on his lips. Always had a fag in his mouth that elf. Carver managed to get the switch on her, removing one hand and twisting the other to pull her left arm up behind her back, bending her at the hips and leaning over her with his damned height advantage.

"Yield yet?" Carver huffed in her ear.

"Never farmboy." She quipped back, shoving him back with a well placed boot to the knee, launching herself onto his back with one arm tight around his throat. The mechanic went down heavily on his front, his parachute reflex the only thing that kept him from breaking his nose. She dug her knee into his back and pulled her arm towards her, effectively arching him painfully so he could breathe. "Yield to a woman?"

"Fuck... you." Carver groaned, boots lashing out behind her, trying to hit her but failing miserably.

"Looks like Rocky gets the pot!" The dwarf cheered.

The air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees and Dyrfinna looked up to see the three men looking at the doorway. She turned her head to see Lucien standing there in his tweed jacket with the patches on the sleeves and dwarven made spectacles on. He was so high when he wore those, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. "Good evening?" He smiled.

Dyrfinna let go of Carver's neck and the mechanic let out a huff of air as he flopped to the ground. "Yay! Alistair gets his cheeses!" The soldier not smoking grinned, raking the coppers on the mess table over.

"Ah sod." Rocky groaned, pinching the fag out of his mouth and rubbing his forehead. "What'd you want you sodding junkie?"

"Those two, in my office. Anger management." He drawled slowly. "I cook a lovely meal to find all the Wardens either crashed out in their bunks, betting or fighting."

"Lovely meal!" Raighne burst with laughter. "Since when were beans and sausages burnt to the Void a lovely meal?"

"Since you get pot scrubbing duty Private!" Lucien barked. Dyrfinna subtly edged off the mechanic, standing up like she'd not been choking the man. "And you! In my office first. No buts."

"But!" She rolled her eyes and trooped out of the mess to see four men smirking. Korth's throne...

* * *

Silmarwen blinked her eyes into the pillow, wondering why her head felt stuffed of cotton balls and her mouth tasted like an ashtray on a hot summer's day. She blinked again, remembering her shot of lyrium. Ah.

She sniffed and immediately wished she hadn't as the burnt acridness of Lucien-cooking hit her nostrils. Fuck, why couldn't Dyrfinna cook like a normal woman for them? Or better yet, anyone that could cook? She rolled off her bunk, landing heavy on her knees. The light in the dormitory was painful and she scrunched her eyes to block it a moment.

Then she felt it. The darkspawn activity above the bunker. She could just imagine opening up the doors to the garage and screaming out on the all-terrain truck, guns and magic ready to frazzle and shoot the fuckers. He he, why did it sound like fun?

Silmarwen padded into the mess to see Duncan already flicking in the surplus catalogue, empty tin bowl to the side with his knife and fork. "Morning?"

"Evening still." He murmured, not looking up from the catalogue.

"Food good or does my nose never lie?" She blinked, a cold shiver taking her as she sat on the chair, head hitting the wooden table.

"Lucien cooked." Duncan still didn't look up.

"Well fuck me sideways I knew it." She grinned into the table. "I guess mine's on the side sitting there like some spinster?"

"Yep." He sniffed and reached into his breastpocket, pulling out a cigar and biting the end off before sticking it in the corner of his mouth and lighting it with one of those safety matches. Safety smafety - you threw it on a bunk and your bed was on fire. She pulled herself achingly off the chair and shuffled her way to the kitchen, the fly papers hung in the corner covered in bluebottles and the overhead fan spinning slowly, the dim bulb attached casting a yellow glow over the shoddy kitchen of grimy avocado tile and hob covered in food long burnt in.

There were a few cooling tin bowls left there and she looked underneath them for the one stamped with her name, finally finding it and grabbing a fork and spoon. It never looked appealing when the Constable cooked. The beans were half mush, half flattened with burnt edges in their copious tomato based sludge, the sausages cut into neat circles. Not that they had any right to be called sausages with their distinct bread to meat ratio. Almost a fucking vegetarian meal. Bunch of pussies.

* * *

Carver sat next to the wireless, waiting for Lucien to come back and drag him by the scruff of his fatigues into the 'sharing office'. He was quite enjoying the jive and jazz playing with the crazy guitar solo when it was interrupted. Cards were thrown down and a commotion picked up over losing signal when the sound crackled back.

"We interrupt our regular broadcast with a matter of great importance." The static crackled after the reader finished.

"Bollocks important! That was good!" Rocky groaned. "Fag me elf."

Raighne shoved his pack of woodbines over to the dwarf wordlessly, the end of one still smouldering in his mouth. That elf could smoke for Ferelden. "Just hours ago Teyrn Cousland and his family have been brutally murdered in their homes."

The din of complaining stopped and listening took over. "Head of the dynasty, Bryce Cousland was found with three bullets in his brain and a forth in the stomach from the autopsy, his wife Eleanor with a singular one in the back. Visiting their parents at the time where Oriana and Oren Cousland, family of their eldest Fergus, both found in a pool of blood in their rooms. The staff at their estate in the Highever lands were taken into custody by officials and have been questioned but the murderer or murderers are still at large. We have no intelligence on the whereabouts of either of the sons to the Terynir but if there is any information that anyone has could they please call in, an operator will put you through to Starkhaven Yard which is running the investigation."

"Well fuck me." Raighne snorted when the music came back on. "Money don't buy you a way out of the path of a bullet. Wonder if they think it were one of the sons?"

"That's horrid. Nobody would kill their family would they?" Alistair breathed.

"Depends what they think they'll get outta it. Dwarven royals always doing shit like that... I know." Rocky grinned, waggling his ginger eyebrows. "So who are the bloody Couslands?"

"Well back in the dark ages they were like lords and ladies - they own the lands of Highever." Alistair looked up, as if trying to remember. Not much you'll remember looking at a dirty ceiling with gum thrown up there Maker knows how long ago. "Nowadays I think it's like landlord to an entire city. They're rolling in it as far as I know."

"Motive right there." Rocky shrugged.

"If it was an elven family it wouldn't even make the papers." Raighne sighed. "Void you'd be lucky for a mention in the obits. Let alone Starkhaven Yard taking an investigation and messing up a wireless broadcast."

"I'll be sure to rig something up if you get murdered elfy, boom my voice into the ears of the masses. Crying my sodding lungs out for your murderer not to get a medal." Rocky grinned, the scar-like S brand on his cheek wrinkling with the smile. It was supposed to mean he was a criminal - but knowing the dwarf for five seconds have you that impression before you even noticed it.

"Fuck you dwarf." Raighne snorted. "I'd do the same for you but the bastard'd get knighted or some shit. Ser Ponceaby of Ponce-a-lot for the slaying of the dangerous criminal Rocky Brosca."

"As if anyone called Ponceaby would get the drop on me. If I didn't die then I'd die of sodding embarrassment!" The dwarf laughed. "You're alright elf. Bit rough on the edges but alright."

"I'll take that as a compliment my uncouth little mascot." The elf grinned.

"And just like that I'm hating your guts again. Ancestors tits. Fold." He chucked his cards into the table and leaned back into the chair, puffing rings of smoke out of his stubbly mouth. "Hey Hawkling, you brooding over your fight with your girlfriend?"

"How many times do I have to fucking well spell it out for you? You keep calling me Hawkling and there's a shiv with your name on it. And secondly-"

"Oh secondly, hark at me I use proper sentences!"

Carver chucked a spare battery for the wireless at the dwarf, with his luck it's come back beeping and ready to explode. "Secondly Dyr isn't my fucking girlfriend."

"I'm surrounded by fucking queers! Does no-one here think those legs straddled around your face-" The dwarf was cut off as the door to the dormitory slammed open.

"Fuck him and fuck his fucking ink blots!" The woman groaned, some burnt food in a bowl in her hand with a spoon basically standing up in it. "And you make one more comment about my legs again dwarf and you'll be eating your own balls with how far I'll shove them up your arse."

"Just how I like it sweet-cheeks, rough and ready. Give us a smooch." The dwarf puckered his lips and got slapped as Dyrfinna passed him. Carver waited for it.

"The Constable is ready to see you Private Dick-face." She stuck a spoon ladled with orangey-red burnt stuff at him. "And he cooked so I think that's just insult to injury."

"How many times does Luce cook high? Maker's breath I'll cook next time!" Alistair groaned.

"Not sodding likely, I had the shits last time you served 'grey a la vomit avec mouldy shit'." Rocky grimaced.

"I'll bloody well cook if I never eat your cooking as long as I live." Carver groaned as he got up, having to see the Constable.

"Who's on laundry this week? One of Alistair's socks attacked me on my way out the showers." Raighne lit a new woodbine off his old one and stubbed the old one out.

"Oh har har. As if your socks were any better. I'm on mess clean-up so count me out." Alistair quipped.

"Pot scrubbing after Lucien cooking." Raighne was quick to point out.

"I'll do it."

All eyes in the dormitory looked that the dwarf incredulously. "Sigfrost's pelt I'll do the damned laundry! You're not touching detergent again! I lost a good pair of trews last time." The woman in the room sighed.

Carver was quick to escape the bickering for his ritualistic 'anger-management', he'd end up with scrubbing the latrine with his toothbrush at this rate.

* * *

Duncan stretched in his bunk, hating the sound of the alarm clock no matter what time it was. He pulled the blankets off and grimaced at the cold in the room. Bloody heating wasn't working. Boiler was shot to buggery so no hot water except from the kettle so the radiators in the room were as stone cold.

He picked up the brass clock with the glowing face, staring incredulously at the painted numbers. Four o'clock, the time of bloody bats and badgers not regular people.

Not that he'd considered himself normal for a long time. He twisted the alarm via the dial on the back off and flicked the desk light on. His fatigues were laid out for this unholy morning hour and he dressed quickly to stave off the cold, vest and long-johns underneath before zipping the fatigues up. The elastic at the waist always made it look like he was carrying a bag in his arse according to the mirror in the corner of the room he thought as he laced hit steel-capped boots on, shined since the patrol yesterday that ended in three Wardens biting the dust.

He picked up the stab and bullet-proof vest, snapping the buckles closed over his chest and picked up the last of his cigars in the tin, pocketing it.

Next were his helmet with the green netting over the top, his bayonet and the strap of grenades he wore diagonally over his chest. Last of all being the box of shells for the gun and the gas mask in it's box with the strap he slung over his shoulder.

The only reason you'd ever be likely to tell he was the Commander was the pin-brooch on his lapel, two wings with a star beneath. Duncan looked at the man in the mirror, he'd shave when they got to the Ostagar fortress and straightened out his protective vest.

No, they'd wired him the telegram before the call through the CB wireless to get their Grey Warden arses to Ostagar. General Loghain and King Cailan were there personally seeing that the troops were doing what they were supposed to be doing - repelling the horde from attacking.

He strode out of the room, flicking the desk lamp off to find half of his Wardens already awake, eating porridge in the mess with bacon, eggs and some heavenly smelling toast. Silmarwen was up, curly hair in a low tail at the nape of her neck and finally scrubbed of every bit of dirt. The elf didn't care what she looked like, just got stuck in and that worked for him.

The last human woman in the order was folding vests and trews in the corner, laundry duty - he didn't envy her with the temperamental washer and drier they had. A bowl of whatever she was having steamed next to her with the radio on low, some jive coming from the speakers. He didn't even know they played anything this early in the Maker-damned morning!

The only other person up was Lucien, his Constable and one of the oldest friend he could say was still alive. The mage was a true genius, mental - but still a genius. He kept reading the same paper for the last week since they'd stopped off at any shops. It was just habit though, toast and drippings with the morning papers - it woke a bloke up with routine.

"Morning Duncan." Lucien didn't even look up. "The men are still snoring their dainty little noses off in their bunks. Rocky had his first nightmare and nearly set his bunk on fire during the night."

"I had wondered when the dreams would come to him." Duncan shrugged, leaning forward and nabbing some toast off Lucien's plate. The mage didn't care, his lyrium working into his early morning system. "Anything new you missed in the papers last time?"

"Some four year old won a beauty pageant in West Hills and there's a coupon for beans and canned tomatoes in the saver page I missed out on. Other than that - no." He folded the broadsheet in half then half again. "Where the fuck did my toast go? I had five slices here, all fresh from that toaster oven!"

Duncan smirked, popping the last crust covered in beef dripping into his mouth. "I didn't see anything." He shrugged.

"He nicked the last bastarding piece and you ate the others." Silmarwen grinned, pointing at him with one of those bony fingers as she scooped her porridge quickly.

"You bastard! Two rashers of your bacon for that, I mean it! I saved that dripping for ages with the rationing!" He beamed. Duncan shook his head, bad decision old man.

"Fine, but will you stop the anger management sessions? I had complaints about a pseudo-psychiatrist practising in my Wardens and I know it's you." He levelled. Lucien blinked innocently.

"They were fighting in the mess again. Chokehold."

"Hand to hand is important in case we run out of cartridges or bayonets get clogged. Maker's breath Luce you remember Dragon 9:26 stuck in the deep roads, you, me, Gregor and Tamarel. Gregor gouged the eyes out a genlock with his thumbs and got that scar on his face before the Legion caught up with us!"

The mage hmm'ed. "Fine. You your shoulders be it if they rip each other's arms off an beat each other like barbarians."

Duncan laughed mirthlessly. "Wake the boys up then and get something in their stomachs, we move at eight, eight thirty latest."

* * *

Carver hated the bloody all-terrain vehicle. It was a bastard to get started on a cold morning in the south but it was soon purring like a cat with cream. A loud cat but still purring. He pulled the rag out his deep fatigues pocket and wiped his hands. Duncan was at the wheel and Silmarwen was ready at the doors to the garage, ready to run like fuck when they opened it.

He climbed in the back with the crates of supplies and other Wardens, picking up his gun and propping it on the ledge of the sides. Rocky sat with his bag of 'goodies' to hurl out and if that didn't make a soldier nervous nothing fucking well would. They had enough petrol to get them to Lothering where they'd restock and have a few hours respite. He'd pop in on mother, Miriam and Bethany, well - just mother because his sisters would be at work at the munitions factory by the time they got there.

Their sniper chewed on a stick of that cinnamon gum, not allowed a cigarette around Rocky's explosives because of last time. The elf always looked on edge when he wasn't puffing away. "Ready Wardens?"

There were a few grunted confirmations of 'ready' when Silmarwen hit the button to open the garage doors. She ran back to the truck and launched herself in as the first darkspawn poured through the opening hatch.

Gunfire was a sound you go used to, the smoke stinging your eyes and the instinct to shut them had to be switched off in the face of an enemy like the darkspawn.

They knew the Wardens were here, their hive-mind meaning more had piled around the underground bunker-base knowing they'd have to get out sooner or later.

The darkspawn were truly disgusting monsters, they could have passed for men, dwarves and elves if not for their twisted appearance and smell of rotted meat that made anyone, even hardened veteran Wardens want to gag. They weren't mindless, merely - shared a mind. Which made one darkspawn as deadly as a horde of them if you didn't run like your arse was on fire.

Not only that, they were speedy bastards, they wore crude armour that looked like corrugated iron that'd rusted off an outhouse so really it was a headshot or a wasted bullet. But they attacked with brute force and numbers.

Claws that could rip a muscle off your bone quicker than a hooker with a lyrium addiction could suck and teeth like spindly needles that rended chucks of flesh in powerful jaws. They didn't eat, they didn't sleep. They just spread the taint that stuck over them like a disease of the blood, trying to make good men and women into ghouls to spread it further. Why - they didn't know, maybe it was to have more minds into their collective one but that just sounded like a cry for help rather than the monsters they knew the darkspawn to be.

Not fucking today would anyone die! Lightning jolted around them as they took off in the bumpy ride up and out of the bunker, their elven mage to thank for that and Rocky set off his dirty bombs full of nails and other twisted shit like barbed wire off, turning the hurlocks and genlocks that were around into gristly, blackened bloody puddles.

Alongside that was the gunfire, the steady thumping of the bayonets and rifles, the timed shots of the sniper rifle and Carver's sub-machine gun drumming through shells like nobodies business.

They thumped up on a rock and back down. Blast it he'd have to check the suspension when they stopped. Bye-bye seeing mother and hello grease up to his elbows! "You remember to turn off the fucking stove?" Dyrfinna shouted over the din of engine, gunfire and magic.

Alistair responded with a gritted out 'yes'. "Turn out all the lights you sodders? I ain't paying that leccy bill if you dint!" Rocky laughed, pulling the pin from a grenade and chucking it into the darkspawn.

"First thing!" Carver laughed back, more at ease like this than any normal situation.

"Lyrium!" Silmarwen shouted. There was a tinkling of glass syringes in the background when the magic stopped roaring around them and a very audible sigh from a certain elf when she injected herself.

The muddy ground rose up like a wave, crashing over the pursuing darkspawn left, the sickening crunch of bones and phlegmy screams. "And that's the way you fucking well kill darkspawn!" The elf laughed. "Hey Raighne, who's got your knickers in a twist?"

Carver relaxed, danger over and slumped into the truck, leaning a shoulder into the crate next to him that smelled of munitions.

The sniper took his eye from the sight, a reddened ring on his brown skin there and chewed slowly on his gum. "No cigarette, no happy elf."

"Where the sod did you drop that syringe?" Rocky shouted indignantly, holding up a spent syringe with bent needle. Carver noted the blood and blue lyrium dripping down her skinny arm where she'd injected quickly. "Never drop that glowing blue shit in my bag! Who knows what the Ancestor's forsaken shit would happen to us when gunpowder hits lyrium!"

"Fucks sake, accident!" Silmarwen put her hands up. It was always interesting to think about how the junkie coped with lyrium. She took it when she wasn't using magic and got those weird highs - but when she did she used whatever power it lent to her magical condition and didn't get the high, just the buzz of power according to the elf.

He was always slightly interested in it because of his father and Bethany. They were both mages before his father died, then just Bethany. He wondered what made someone take the drug outside of using magic, if they'd been forced to use so much magic that it was just a natural thing for them to need the lyrium outside of it. He shuddered at the thought of Bethany snorting dust or injecting it in some lyrium-den where ten other people had used the needle before. It was a strict rule in the house never to use magic without needing it, and with electricity, cars and guns the only magic Bethany ever looked into was healing as a just in case.

Carver missed his sisters somewhat. He liked being out of Miriam's shadow - she was always the centre of attention and being in the shadow of a woman didn't sit right with the mechanic. He'd always miss Bethany, she was his twin.

But he liked being in the Wardens, an elite squad of people that shared the taint with the darkspawn and didn't give a rats arse who or what you were. It was like being told you could create who you were from scratch and nothing appealed more to the young man. In practise, it meant being shoulder to shoulder with people like Silmarwen and Rocky but you couldn't be picky after you'd swallowed your glass of darkspawn blood.

That sounded barbaric to be honest but it was needed. Duncan had told them the side-effects of being a Warden and some weren't pretty like the nightmares, the clawing hunger (which seemed odd when the darkspawn didn't eat but Carver supposed it was the bodies way of saying you weren't darkspawn), the fact you'd die in thirty years after the Joining. But there were advantages too and he couldn't bet his wages the ancient warriors of the past used these more that they did now, what with the last Blight according to the history books ending with the Archdemon stabbed through the head with a fuck-off sword. But able to gain muscle quickly, despite the hunger being able to go without food and water for longer, immunity to poisons and other nefarious substances (but what crazy fucker wouldn't wear a gas mask? You want your lungs to give out?) and then of course there was the fact he'd never done a mile under three minutes before being a Warden.

The taint effectively made you sterile, unable to have kids. Carver thought Raighne might've been happy about that with his three gobbling up his pay but some people didn't like it. It was as it was, no point crying over spilt milk.

There was a final reason to being a Grey Warden. During a Blight, a dragon - proper medieval style dragon that breathed fire and everything - would lead the darkspawn up to the surface. It was one of the old Tevinter Gods incarnate as a tainted dragon and they called it the Archdemon. Only a Grey Warden could kill the Archdemon and it killed them in the process.

That'd been hard to take but as a fifteen year old lying his way into the army and then at eighteen joining the Wardens he'd not thought about the possibility of it actually happening. Then sods law a Blight had already started when he did take the Joining.

"Thinking of your family in Lothering?" Dyrfinna asked, checking her bayonet and cleaning the barrel.

"A little." Carver shrugged. "You? I never asked if you have any family." Which was true, most people just got on with themselves when they were Wardens, you got your ammunition, your wage, your rations and you worked hard for it all. It was always a person you thought of though on the front lines or when you got up close and personal with the darkspawn in your dreams. Brought to back to the now. For him it was his mother, his sisters.

"I have a son, his name's Thorarin." She pulled a golden locket out of her fatigues and opened it up, the black and white picture of a four year old beamed out. A nameday cake on the table and a slightly younger Dyrfinna in a baggy jumper hugging him from behind. "He lives with my mother, sweet little lad."

"Why'd you join the Wardens then?" He asked, genuinely curious. Why in the Maker's name would a woman join when they had a kid? That's a life you kept - you didn't run from that. Then again there was Raighne who'd effectively run from practical family life.

"I protect him like this from monsters I'd never want near him and provide more money than I'd put on the table as a waitress or a typist, or even in the munitions factories. It's hard to leave but it's always gratifying to come back." She smiled weakly, tucking the locket back in her fatigues. He almost felt bad for asking now. "How's your sisters from the last letter?"

"Bethany met a boy, I'd like to vet the bastard before he so much as touches her but it's not like I can." He shrugged. "Mother's joined the Women's Institute, you know, making knitted jumpers, Jam and Ferelden. Then Miriam's just being a pain according to mother's last one, cut her hair so short she looks like a boy!"

"Raighne? How's the family?" Carver asked, feeling warm and fuzzy from the talk. This was what being any soldier was, thinking of those you left behind in this life.

The half-Rivaini elf grinned and pulled a wad of polaroids out of the inner pocket of his fatigues. "Adaia turned four last month so I'm sending her some of that dwarven taffy. The twins are still only 18 months though so I'd bet Nesiara's stuck with teething toddling monsters!" He pointed his long fingers at each figure in them, little chubby babies at the hospital in tired arms and a young elven girl sitting on the bed looking a proud sister. It was quite sweet seeing the elf's family and the sniper was proud of them.

"Did Elrohir send you that thing from Tevinter?" Alistair asked Silmarwen. Joining in with the conversation.

"Bastard can do whatever he wants in fucking Tevinter, and no. How's Goldanna?" Silmarwen bristled, her relationship with her mage brother that had moved north to the mageocracy still brittle. He was supposed to have joined the Wardens with her but then just ran off. They might've spoken only twice a year - Satinalia and their nameday. Lot of twins about; him, Raighne's kids and Silmarwen was half of a pair too.

"I think she's going through a patch of begging me for my wages, next month it'll likely be why'd you kill our mother you worthless bastard." Alistair shrugged lightly. Carver knew meeting his half-sister had been difficult for the soldier, the fact that she'd been a heartless shrew even worse. But family was family and Alistair sent the woman spare bits of his wage every so often to help out. Alistair was a nice guy, got kicked about a lot but wasn't everyone these days?

"I can't imagine my cousins being so callow." Raighne sighed. "She actually thought when I'd accompanied our resident bastard Theirin to her house that I was his staff or something. Tell you, the kids playing in the lounge stopped a bullet going up her nose."

"That was mean." Alistair nodded. "So Dyr! I didn't know you had a kid! Are you married?"

"No." Dyrfinna didn't look up from her bayonet, not cleaning it but inspecting it. Unmarried mother, that explained more. She was one of those people that believed in the Avvar Gods, not the Maker and they didn't marry. In an Andrastian world people like her got spat at in the streets. But your religion was your religion. As far as he knew, Silmarwen believed in the Dalish Gods. Wardens didn't care who you worshipped as long as you fought for them.

"Rocky! You have family right?" Alistair moved over to the dwarf who as sorting a wire on one of his bombs, tweezers in hand and magnifying lens propped on his face.

"Sister's a whore to a prince and mother's a drunk. Move on bastard child and let me to this sodding... fucking... cunting bastard wire!" He chucked the tweezers at Alistair. "Lost my concentration. I'm testing this bad boy on you when it's done. How's up for Alistair kabob?"

"Pass." Was repeated around the back of the truck.

"Colourful language back there." Lucien turned his stupid face back, sticking his head through the oiled canvas that covered them in case of rain, grinning. "Rocky, what a vocabulary you have."

"Shag a tree Luce." Rocky grunted, picking up his tweezers off the bed of the truck and getting back to whatever bomb he was working on. That dwarf was dangerous.


	3. Cherry pie before Ostagar

Author note: I'm trying to keep this realistic. Obviously rationing has come into force by Ostagar due to the darkspawn and men being called up into the armies, Ferelden is nothing but used to war and would be ready to get back to austerity that the Rebels would have had. I'm basing it mainly from WW2 rationing which came into force around 1939/1940 which albeit - set before the time-period of this fic - would still be fairly accurate.

So while they're not convinced of a Blight (come on - 400 years since the last one?) there's an enemy and anyone can pick up a gun and shoot it after some training. They'd call up certain people first - there'd be measures taken in case this is a war of attrition against a very large group of darkspawn that have reached the surface. Which would seem more likely to the non-Warden populace.

*Cassettes were common enough come the 60's but vinyl was still a big thing. So both will appear in usage for this fic. The time-setting is purposely wibbly-wobbly for this as it is in canon Thedas in regards to technology and politics.

* * *

They arrived in Lothering to the midday sun and Carver stretched as he got out the all-terrain truck. Maker's balls he hated being cooped up in the back. Better by far than walking or running the distance so complaining was null point.

"Riordan sent a message over on the CB. Says he has three recruits he'll be bringing to Ostagar for us." Lucien announced. "So I'm asking you all now - play nice, they'll get there during supper so you'll meet them proper either on night patrol or in the morning."

"Depends who the recruits are if we play nice." He shrugged, reaching for the tool kit and climbing underneath the massive truck. Huh, suspension didn't look too bad actually. He could hear talking from the Wardens but nothing so loud he caught the actual words. There'd be more time to have a proper look when they got to the military base but the suspension should be fine. Carver pulled himself out and dragged the toolbox after, lifting it back onto the bed of the truck next to the munitions crate he'd been leaning against.

Raighne was already out with a fag in his mouth looking like the happiest elf in history, leant back into the truck with his parcel for his family tucked under his arm and his ration book in hand, sorting out which he'd be trading in when he went to the shops here. Carver reached into his own pocket and pulled out the yellowed paper book.

He had 1oz of butter, 2oz of tea, an egg and 2oz of margarine left for the week. That and his bonus granted to the Wardens of a pack of three cans of beans and two tins of spam. Bloody beans would be the death of him. Some people didn't like saving their bacon or egg rations - using them on one day for a big breakfast and sitting there with watery porridge or toast the rest of the week, he savoured the bacon though, four rashers in the rations made for a whole week of half a rasher at breakfast and a full one on sundays.

He'd give the slips to Duncan when he picked up their next supplies, he couldn't wait for the cabbages, leeks and carrots with dried egg and dried potatoes! The joy of his life! He'd see if he had enough points for a pack of digestives in here and maybe some marmalade. Carver grinned at the thought of some thick-cut marmalade, spread nice and thick on a slice of homemade bread after supper.

Things didn't work out often like that in the army or the Wardens. He couldn't honestly remember the last time he had a good bit of marmalade on bread - with proper butter! But a man could dream of a time he wasn't served beans with shoddy sausage or cabbage with swede and carrots. A time he could have a cup of tea with proper milk that had cream on top!

It was a good thing cigarettes and cigars weren't rationed or Raighne, Silmarwen, Rocky and Duncan would very likely end up going mad, and all the others would too as a side effect of that. "Who else's heading to the post office?" Raighne asked, wary of going in alone with being an elf. To be honest if he did he'd end up waiting hours to get served.

"I'll go, I have a letter for family." Dyrfinna shrugged. "And more letters or parcels we can take?"

"Oh! I sent off for this proper bobby-dazzler of a pin for when we next stopped in Lothering. They should have it." Alistair brightened. "It'll be there 'Alistair of the Grey Wardens'. Oh, and a letter for the girl that's writing me in that soldier-writing scheme. One to send back and one to pick up." Carver remembered signing up to that himself. Didn't get more than one letter but Alistair enjoyed talking to his little pen-friend.

Rocky shoved past. "Smell that pig-shit, dogs and smoke! Lothering's a lovely little slice of Ferelden ain't it?" Carver had to agree with the dwarf; a munitions factory, the office block that was all purpose for the gas board, electric and phones, a pokey cinema, farms, one tailors for men and women, a post office and newsagent, butcher, grocer, one pub, a cafe and a petrol station. Lothering would've been a one-horse town if they still used horses in farming. The fact he could name the owners of all the shops and most probably half the people that worked in the shops too was neither here nor there. It was a small place to live.

"Oi! I used to live here!" He shoved the dwarf on the shoulder. "So where you off to in a hurry?"

"Find somewhere to grab a slice of pie." He grinned, reaching into his pocket and jangled whatever he'd won yesterday in the poker game.

"Barlins. Over there." He pointed to the cafe attached to the petrol station. "Help me fill the truck and a few jerry cans and I'll see if he'll cut it on the larger side."

"Knew I liked you Hawkling." The dwarf ducked quickly, chuckling.

Raighne and Dyrfinna were already long gone by the time they'd filled the truck and the ten gallon cans and paid their dues for the petrol, using half the ration slips all the Wardens had for it. It'd be enough for a week - so they'd be fine, they had their ration books to last the next six months, all date stamped so they couldn't use them too early. Duncan was tinkering with the radiator on the truck, not happy with how hot the engine was under the bonnet and looked up when they returned. "Pie in Barlins with me and Hawkling here boss?" Rocky grinned.

"Oh pie! Tempt a dying man with pie!" Lucien grinned from the back of the truck, piling in some of the supplies at the back with Alistair. "Think we can tag along when we're done here?"

"Me too! Cherry pie, big fucking glass of soda and a fag!" Silmarwen stuck her head out the back of the truck - so she was helping too.

"Why the sod not?" Rocky shrugged. "So boss?"

"We wait for Privates Tabris and O Auonar from the post office and the supplies are loaded." He poked a face with a grease stain on his brow out of the bonnet. "Then as much pie as you can afford."

"Yay for the boss!"

"Did you get the non-ration foodstuffs or the rations at the moment?" Carver asked. Hoping for the former or he'd have to troop to the shops or his weekly stuff'd be wasted if they'd be at Ostagar for a while. No chance of picking it up at the military base.

"Both." Was the reply as Alistair lifted a heavier crate. "Did you have anything left?"

"A bit." Carver shrugged, annoyed he'd not given in the slips he had left. "Rocky? Wanna help grab the good stuff or not fussed?"

The dwarf was leaning into the truck, watching the loading with a fag in his mouth. "Huh? Not fussed. Grab what you're getting." He shrugged.

Carver rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll be back shortly."

* * *

The post office was a bloody mess. Raighne waited in the queue for sending the parcels and letters while Dyrfinna sorted picking up papers and the tobacco, cigarettes, rolling papers and cigars. He couldn't do it, he'd get the dried out tobacco or woodbines crushed if they'd fallen out the back. She finished up at the counter, handing over what coin it cost. "Still waiting?" She smiled as she walked over. Raighne was fairly tall for an elf, but the woman soldier was that few inches taller than him that made him feel very short indeed.

"Of course. Bloody girl up there can't work the till proper." He sighed.

"Mint?" She pulled a roll of them from her pocket and held it open. Raighne smiled, if the elf had three weaknesses it might be his family, his fags and his mints.

"Don't mind if I do." He picked out one and popped in his mouth, the chalky strong mint half-dissolving on his tongue. "So," He switched the mint into his cheek. "I didn't know you had a kid."

"Nobody asked." She shrugged.

"Willingly take up arms or..." He left it hanging, knowing his own presence on the field was tolerated because most people didn't care to fight alongside an elf. Fine if you shot down the hurlock chasing them but not so liked when it came to everyday life.

"My husband was called up. But he caught polio, in an iron-lung. We didn't have the money to pay off the conscription call up so I took his place. They switched the machine off a week before I finished basic training. Just over a year ago. I learned I'd earn that extra bit more in the Wardens while on reprimand so I joined, quite recklessly. Less leave but nearly twice the pay. Four months since then. Thorarin misses both of us so much but mother likes to coddle him." She smiled weakly.

"You said you weren't married."

"I'm a widow, technically not married." She sighed. "And you?"

"I might have signed up myself in the army and I was dishonourably discharged. Duncan heard about my skills with the sniper rifle and gave an elf struggling to make ends meet a chance to earn a wage." He shrugged lightly.

"And you were discharged because?" Dyrfinna raised one blonde eyebrow.

"A story for another time. I took the Joining with Alistair and Silmarwen as well as another sniper. He didn't make it but we all did. I think who you take your Joining with bonds you a lot. Poor Lenny."

"It was just Carver, Uri and myself at our Joining." She sighed. "Poor Uri. Shame but we can't turn back time."

"What you do before then?" He asked, curious because he'd not actually spoken to the tattooed woman this much before despite only being two months her senior in the Warden squad. He hadn't even been there during her Joining Ritual - taking Alistair to see his half-sister at the time.

"Barmaid, I threw drunks on their arses in this dump called The Hogshead. It's... a story for another time." They moved forward in the queue.

"Hello! Did you have outgoing post or just picking up?" The girl behind the counter, frizzy ginger hair tied back into a neat bun and a knitted dusty pink cardigan on under the apron she wore with her name-tag, smiled.

"Outgoing and picking up. Have you got anything under the name Alistair of the Grey Wardens?" Dyrfinna asked. The girl turned quickly and looked in the sack to her side, letters bound together in elastic.

"Just the one... and a small packet." She finally said, bringing it out and laying it on the counter. Raighne put his parcel on the scales with their outgoing post on the counter. "And with the parcel and letters that'll be... twelve coppers in total."

"Daylight fucking robbery." Raighne snorted under his breath. Dyrfinna paid the woman and they left quickly.

* * *

Alistair waited by the locked up truck for Raighne and Dyrfinna, the others already gone into the cafe. He could see them and feel the taint through the frosted glass, blurry figures in blue fatigues and black boots. The golden lettering that declared a cup of tea for a copper and coffee, 2 cups for three coppers shone in the afternoon sun. The neon flashing sign with the 'cola sold here' over the door.

"Well there you are!" He greeted the two returning. "What took so long?"

"The girl behind the counter was attacking the till." The half-Rivaini elf shrugged, puffing on a woodbine. "So a letter from a girl! Is our ex-templar growing up now?" Dyrfinna handed the letter and his precious pins in the package over.

"Bee is a friend, and she's very sweet." He sniffed at the elf. "So schtum it."

"Alistair and Bee sitting in a tree..." The elf laughed.

"K-i-s-s-i-n-g!" Dyrfinna joined in. He narrowed his eyes at them as he put the letter and letter-thin package in his inner fatigue pocket.

"Shut up. You're both evil."

The other two Wardens laughed. "So where's everyone disappeared to... wait..." Raighne closed his eyes. "Taint says behind us."

"Cafe for pie. Carver knows the bloke that owns the joint so the slices are thicker than usual. Come on, I'm ruddy starving waiting for you two."

"Let's get going then!" Dyrfinna bat him on the shoulder. "So Bee? That's her name or?"

"Well Luce said no-one gives their full name, so I don't know actually. But she's sweet, works in munitions and a trained typist." Alistair shrugged.

"And what did you tell her?" He found himself blushing.

"I said I'm a soldier, which I am. And she doesn't take the ever-loving piss out of my stamps and pins! And of course I told her about the crooning, she asked me to send a cassette in the last letter so I did." The door opened with the bell above ringing, Duncan was already looking toward them, the taint having announced their arrival before. The cafe was filled with swinging dance-hall music coming from the jukebox by the bathrooms, the smell of roasting coffee beans and the grease of a griddle.

"That's why the girl charged us so much. I wondered what that extra copper was for with how heavy your letter was." Raighne mused aloud.

"Pull up a fucking chair you three! This pie is so fucking gooood!" Silmarwen didn't look up from shovelling the cherry pie in her mouth, speaking with a splutter of crumbs. Best taint-senses of any Warden in their squad for a long time. Part of her status as invaluable. She'd tell you how many hurlocks, genlocks, shrieks and Maker's breath Ogres were on the field too if she strained herself.

"What're you ordering then?" A dour, tired waitress asked as the three sat in the booth, a pad and pen in hand.

"Nothing much... a slice of the apple pie, a corned beef roll, a bottle of cola and a cup of tea?" He asked, reaching into his pocket for his wallet and the coppers of his wage still in there, the rest still hidden in the sock at the bottom of his kitbag. The waitress picked them the coppers being put out but the three Wardens for their food and put them in the pocket of her apron.

"Sounds good, sign me up for the same but coffee not tea." Raighne grinned.

Dyrfinna was craned over the menu. "Have you got the lemon tart still?" There was a half-hearted nod from the waitress. "A slice of lemon tart, a cup of coffee and a cucumber roll."

"Anything else? No? Right." The waitress moved quickly away, padding on the chequered linoleum back to the kitchens.

"So what are we sodding expecting at Ostagar? Never fought in the army." Rocky asked. There was only one face that didn't look shocked about it - Silmarwen. Alistair thought about it and everyone else'd fought with some sort of army be it in the Kings, reserves or in Lucien's case - the dwarven one in his twelve years of serving with the Wardens.

"A military base, sweat, swearing and men." Dyrfinna answered him. "They find taking anger out on their faces isn't the best option when someone slaps you on the arse."

"Don't touch the explosives without permission." Lucien warned. "We can't put you through the Joining twice."

"Sirens warning of attack." Raighne sighed. "First time I heard them I could've sworn it was the end of the world."

"People ballsing up their vehicles on routine patrols." Carver added. "You make friends and enemies pretty quick with who breaks theirs most often and how quick you patch them up."

"You'll see for yourself; we're to bring a lot of experience in darkspawn fighting tactics to the table." Duncan took a sip of his coffee, black with one sugar. None of them liked the powdered milk that came in rations. You put it in your porridge because it tasted terrible with water but it was still horrid.

"So... shoot the fuckers in the face and stick a mage up on a railing with a sniper and a box of syringes?" Silmarwen grinned. "Don't have to be a genius to work that out."

"A war of attrition, we whittle the darkspawn down with patrols coming and going on rota, make sure anyone wounded is checked for the taint and wait for the Archdemon to show herself." Duncan rolled his eyes. "And we need to do something to make ourselves just that little bit more popular. It's not like we'll get welcomed with open arms."

"Oh do tell, talent show with Raighne fiddling and Alistair crooning his heart out?" Rocky grinned, taking a bite of his toasted sandwich... something inside it that looked like an egg but time had told Alistair it was dried egg mixed with dried milk and margarine and a bit of oil, fried to be like scrambled egg. Not the nicest of things but it could've been worse.

The waitress silently put the tea, coffee and cola on the table, switching the filling ashtray and moving back. Duncan snorted, shaking his head. "According to our books I found out we used to have a bit of a base this far south a couple of hundred years ago. It might be all rubble now of course, or paved over. But the Grey Wardens at the time left some documents - which again, may have disintegrated. Treaties of support in the event of a Blight."

"Now that's fucking interesting!" Silmarwen stabbed her fork on the last piece of cherry on her plate, popping it in her mouth. "Who with? We've technically got all those other fucking Wardens in other countries ready to move when we get the bastarding clearance on the borders for them."

"Allies in this country actually." Duncan smiled briefly. "If they still exist there'd be three groups. You all know the dwarves will stand with the Wardens due to their own never-ending battle with them and one treaty will compel them to. Another is supposed to be for the mages of Kinloch university to have the freedom to enter battle alongside us and the last is word from the Dalish of all people."

"The Dalish'd have forgotten by now." Silmarwen sighed, oddly not swearing. "Bunch of fuckwads." And there it was.

"You're Dalish ain't ya Elfy?" Rocky furrowed his brow, grease dripping down his chin.

"You mean the people that basically abandoned me at six to the templars to get shoved in Kinloch and hooked on fucking lyrium? I'm as Dalish as you are." She dropped her fork with a clatter and reached for her tin of tobacco, angrily rolling out a cigarette. "The only person who gave a flying fuck about me was Elrohir and that prick left too, not willing to join the one place I thought I'd make a difference, just took off on his merry fucking way to Tevinter." She used a lighter out her top pocket to light up and sucked on the end of the fag.

"The Dalish should be compelled to join our fight, their guerilla tactics and knowledge of magic and how to live nomadic will be something we may rely on in the times to come. The last Blight lasted twelve years before it ended, the taint will destroy crops, devastate towns and cities without sparing anything. We might even resort to setting fire to these towns just to hold the darkspawn back." Duncan shivered, reaching into his pocket for that last cigar and lighting it with a match. "Four hundred years without a Blight and the Grey Wardens are all but forgotten except history books and the odd museum exhibit. We can't rely on the tactics last used because of the changes in technology, our missions in the deep roads and what we've done so far will pale in comparison. This is a new war, with a very different soldier on the front lines."

Alistair felt the incessant need to lighten the mood. "But I could bet an archer would have been crapping his pants much more than we would."

"Let's put a bow and arrow in his hands and throw him against a hurlock at twenty paces. See how brown his pants turn." Raighne sighed, lighting a new woodbine alongside the others creating a grey-white cloud above them. "When's our ruddy food arriving?"

"You've been quiet Hawkling." Rocky turned to Carver, absent-mindedly eating in the corner of the booth, his plate empty.

"Thinking."

"First for everything." The dwarf got jostled for that.

"I was thinking about it all. Could you set fire to a city or a town knowing maybe your family was still there? It's not like if we found a kid who was tainted we'd give them the Joining so would you shoot them in the head to spare them?" There was a very uncomfortable silence. "People need to evacuate, children especially. Get out of the path of the horde, go abroad, overseas where the darkspawn can't get them."

"Anyone ever seen a darkspawn row a boat?" Raighne asked, those dark eyes wide, whatever humour he had gone. "I need to get a letter to Nesiara and the kids, to father and my cousins. Maker's balls I'll send them every copper I have if they just get out of Ferelden."

"Mother would never leave Ferelden." Dyrfinna breathed. "It was hard enough getting her into Denerim and out of Phoenix. If... Duncan. Write out the best letter you can demanding that the Wardens families evacuate."

"Does anyone else need me to write out letters?" The waitress finally arrived with the rolls, pies and tart, silently picking up the ashtray again and switching it with how quickly Raighne could fill it. Alistair tucked into the roll in front of him, the Warden hunger never disappeared even in the face of worry.

"Nesiara should listen but father mightn't. Good idea Dyr." Raighne stubbed out his woodbine and flicked the ash off the end of the half-finished fag, slipping it back into his packet for later. "There's going to be mass evacuation if the horde isn't contained or routed here. Fuck me-"

"Again?" Rocky sniggered. The elf flicked a chunk of apple at the dwarf.

"I understand." Duncan stood up and shuffled round the booth, cigar clenched between his teeth as he moved. "I'll get letters written and sent. I have your current addresses right?" There was a nodding from Dyrfinna and Raighne. "Carver, tell your family to move. Lothering isn't far from Ostagar, if the horde moves here _will_ disappear."

"We have some family in the Free Marches, mother's side. They could go there hopefully... I'm not sure if Raighne's family and Dyr's would find it easier to relocate with them? I could ask that they take a train up to Denerim and they'd all go together." The mechanic looked doubtful. "I'm not sure where-else they'd go."

"Mother's family all left Rivain during the Ferelden Occupation. It's possible but unlikely that there's anything for them there but that's worth a shot."

"Move quickly, ask. I want you all back in the truck by three, quarter past latest or you're running to Ostagar." Alistair quickly looked at his watch.

"That's an hour and a half." He said through a mouthful of roll.

"Then eat, move it Private Hawke and Privates O Auonar and Tabris will get their letters off asap. Alistair... did you want to send one?" Lucien asked.

"You best just send one to Goldanna, you have her address." He told Duncan, tucking into the hot apple pie, his corned beef roll finished with how hungry he was.

* * *

Dyrfinna sat in the back of the truck with the others, listening to the faint wireless broadcast over the rain, Raighne had won the ace out of the deck Duncan held out so he got the choice of station. Country music was either lively or melancholic in her opinion. Thankfully this one was the lively sort.

Carver, Alistair and Rocky played cards close to the front amongst the crates, not betting - just playing by the light of the bulb up in the canvas sheeting that kept the rain that was pouring down out.

Rocky made sure his explosives were locked away so Raighne sat with his legs dangling out the back of the truck, far from the jerry cans and Rocky's explosives so he could have a smoke, Silmarwen kept dosing off into her knees, Soris Tabris' book perched between them where she'd tried to have a read.

Korth's throne she hated it when it got cold, especially the south when night started falling. Only an hour away from the Ostagar military base. She might as well have been a smoker with the way her breath came out in soft plumes of white.

She looked over at the road ahead through the gap in the canvas that opened to the steel topped driver cabin, windscreen wipers going twenty to the dozen and high-beams illuminating the rain and immediate area ahead them. The gravel crunched wetly underneath, the roads bumpier since an hour past Lothering. Two and a half hours sitting on your arse in the back of the truck was horrid.

"Riordan to Duncan, are you in the truck?" Came through on the CB, crackly Orlesian accent little more than a whisper as she strained her hear through the rain, gravel and static. She vaguely remembered the Orlesian Warden, she'd seen him once when he was on leave - if she remembered correctly he'd recently been transferred to the Ferelden ones since then.

"Lucien to Riordan. We're here." Lucien replied, putting his newspaper down and picking up the speaker for the CB wireless.

"We'll be four hours from Ostagar, had to refuel in Lothering and grabbed a bite to eat. Hoping the weather will die down soon enough. The recruits are-" The sound died out on both the CB and the regular wireless at the same time.

"Riordan? Riordan? Do you copy?" Lucien clicked the button on the dashboard in the hopes it was just the battery of the truck giving him gip. But the headlights still worked. "Shit. Think it's the rain or how far south we are?" He asked to nobody in particular.

"Likely a mixture of both." Duncan replied, not taking his eyes off the road.

"That's all the wirelesses out then. It's going to be a long drive." Lucien sighed, getting back to his paper. "I can't wait to see his three recruits."

It'd be a long drive indeed.

* * *

The Ostagar military base came through the grey sleet of the rain, chain-link fence and barbed wire around the building erected there over the ruins of what might've been a castle back in the old days, now brick factory.

The factory'd been re-purposed early on in the Blight, when the darkspawn started to reach the surface it was down south. Duncan remembered the mass evacuation of everyone from the Chasind suburbs and villages down here. Some people stayed, some always stay - they can't bear the thought of leaving the homes they created so he knew for a fact there was a small hospital still running on their back-up generator down here with their sparse littering of residents providing on the field care if they saw someone survive but be unable to get moving.

Of course, the army didn't have the same confirmation that the Wardens had over it being a Blight - but measures had been taken nevertheless by King and country to repel any threat to Ferelden. Maker hope it was enough.

He stopped outside the checkpoint, just the fog-lights and his own headlights lighting the evening air. A single soldier with flashlight in a waterproof mac and umbrella ran through the gates and came up to the driver side door. "Papers of identity please?"

Duncan looked over at Lucien and was shuffling in the leather briefcase. "That should be all of us." He said as he passed them over. The soldier in green fatigues held his umbrella between his chin and shoulder as he flashed the light at each paper.

"The Grey Warden squad finally arrive. We have... Commander Duncan Thomsett?" The light flashed on his face as the soldier looked at his identity photo on the papers. "Constable Lucien Amell, and his papers verifying he's allowed to carry lyrium and take it too. Mage?"

"Of course." Lucien sighed.

"Just checking Ser. We have to keep this place airtight you see. Private Raighne Tabris, papers proving he's allowed to carry weapons." The soldier shuffled the papers as he shone the light at Raighne and the sniper rifle that was his. The elf scowled at the soldier. "Private Carver Hawke - I knew you didn't I?"

"Of course you knew me you prick." Carver grumbled. "How's your sister Gavin?"

"Fine, bit on the pregnant side of course but fine." The soldier, Gavin, responded tersely.

"A woman? Private Dyrfinna O Auonar? I knew you too. Not many women break the sandbags with a bayonet because someone pissed them off."

"Hello Gavin. It'd have been Fred's balls if I didn't go for the sandbags." The woman sniffed.

"Private Alistair Theirin? Any relation to the King?" Gavin chuckled. "Maker's balls you could be his doppelgänger you know! Not Cailan's but a young King Maric's for sure. Bloody coincidences eh?"

"Yeah..." Alistair shrugged awkwardly.

"And another woman? Ah, mage - makes sense. Permissions for Private Silmarwen Surana, slippery bugger of a name that is, to take but not carry lyrium except in the event of Constable Lucien Amell's death."

There was a growl from a certain elven mage at the back as the light shone on her face. "Private Rocky Brosca's the last one. Where's he then?"

"Down here ya sodder?" The dwarf groaned as the light went above his head.

"Should've seen that. Dwarf, clear as day. Permissions to use explosives and be in public. Hope there ain't gonna be trouble here?" Gavin narrowed his eyes at Duncan as he passed the papers back, holding his umbrella properly again.

"There won't be." Duncan assured the soldier.

"What supplies are you carrying?" He asked, light hovering on the crates between the Wardens in the back.

"Personal rations, munitions, petrol rations, the usual stuff." Lucien answered for him. "And of course the lyrium which can be vetted when we get in the dry don't you think?"

"Yeah, course. Let me open the gates fully and I'll show you to the cots been reserved for your lot." Gavin launched himself on the gravel away and unlocked the gates, pulling them open. Duncan drove through and offloaded his Wardens at the massive doors to the re-purposed factory with their kitbags and weapons before driving round with park the all-terrain vehicle with the army issue ones. He locked the cabin and moved quickly in the rain, picking up his own roll, gas mask box and bayonet, the rain splattering on the top of his tin helmet with the green netting over the top.

"Oi boss, gotta man wearing gold epaulettes and grinning like a hatter-" The dwarf was cut off by Carver with a smack on the back of the head.

"Duncan!" He stepped into the porch too see none other than King Cailan in full army gear and fatigues, golden epaulettes like Rocky'd said and the grin of a hatter.

"King Cailan I-"

"Wasn't expecting a royal welcome?" King Cailan shook his head, chuckling. "How are you?"

"Tired, wet, cold, hungry-" Rocky started listing off before he could answer. This time it was Lucien that caught him on the back of his head with the lyrium storage briefcase.

"Oh I like him. What's your name my fine stout fellow?" The King looked toward the dwarf with a fiery crew-cut.

"Private Brosca, finest explosives this side of the surface." The dwarf smiled. "And I weren't lying - so just follow the other bastards to the cots?" He jerked a thumb to the Wardens hurrying after the soldier, Gavin, who'd seen them in. Lucien was dawdling slightly, watching where the Privates were going.

"What a funny little man." King Cailan grinned. "Any word from the outside? Radio tower was knocked out a few weeks ago so we're working on dribs and drabs being brought in."

"That would explain it." Duncan nodded. "Not even telegrams getting through?"

"Not a sausage. We'll be back to runners with parchment and swords soon enough!" He laughed.

"We were tuned into the Redcliffe station for the music so the latest I have is that the soldiers there are getting called up, my best guess would be a week before they're ready to move." Duncan sighed, on his own other than Lucien out of earshot but hanging back.

"Eamon's always faffing." Cailan chuckled. "Go get with your squad then."

Duncan did as the King bid, not because he was told to but because he was tired, cold, wet, hungry and whatever else Rocky would've listed. Driving for over three hours was knackering and he reached for the new tin of cigars that'd been bought at Lothering in his pocket.

The Commander found the Wardens in the far left corner of what would've been the factory floor, now just a hall lined with cots, soldiers in most of them in their khaki or vests and trews, smoking, playing cards or fiddling with personal affects as he passed.

Lucien lit his finger for Duncan to light the cigar and he grinned. Two of his oldest, alive friends against the Blight. Riordan, Lucien and himself. He'd hated Riordan at first - thought the man a pompous prick and he was drunk at their Joining. But the man grew on you like some festering sore, shared bottles of wine nicked out of Commander Genevieve's office so long ago it seemed - back when the Grey Wardens were first invited back into Ferelden.

Riordan and he'd been vitrolic friends in Orlais together and he always took it upon himself when on leave to take the train over the border to visit. Back when he'd been the Warden-Constable under Commander Polara and Riordan had just been a Warden from Jader. There was more time back then it seemed, they were younger men with the world at their feet.

Now it was like they were the last two left from that time, Lucien a newer but still old friend and all his Wardens in the order six months or fewer. He took a long suck on the cigar, dropping the ash in Raighne's ashtray in on the cot he'd requisitioned. "I'm going to check the patrol schedules, find out when we'd have the best shot at taking Riordan's recruits out." Lucien bustled, putting his briefcase and roll on a spare cot.

"So we're fucking well here now. Anything we're going to do or just sit on our arses for the moment?" Silmarwen grinned up from her cot.

"I suggest making yourselves settled, get a short kip in you. As the youngest joint Wardens in the squad Privates Hawke and O Auonar are to be accompanying and training if needs be the new recruits. Tradition as always." Duncan sat down on one of the spare cots, kicking off his left boot with the right and having the stick his cigar between his teeth to take off the right one by undoing the laces.

"I do hope that means we're not heading out into the darkspawn infested areas around here with just Carver, me and three rookies?" Dyrfinna asked, eyes narrowed. Duncan didn't answer, just raised his eyebrows in a 'you're questioning what I just said' expression. "You're serious. Korth's throne! Rocky, give us some dynamite, grenades and some smoke bombs if you have them. We'll need every trick up our sleeve."

"They can't be that bad!" Alistair snorted. "Lack of faith right there - you two were rookies before."

"No. We were army, trained soldiers." Carver pointed a toothbrush at the ex-templar. "These recruits aren't here, they're likely at best just reserves for the army."


End file.
